Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Part 1:

Warning: Naughty language, kids.

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So before I start, I have to say that once again, the music in this movie in A+. So from now on I will be doing a music rating on every movie I review.

HTTYD: 9/10 dragons

The movie starts with a lovely narration from our main character, Hiccup. He basically talks about how Viking life sucks, even their names are terrible. The narration leads into a dragon attack in which the dragons try to steal the Viking’s livestock. We see Hiccup running around and everyone is like: “No.” You can already tell he’s not the most popular guy in the village. Gerard Butler catches him and tells him to get inside. Gerard’s character is named Stoick, he’s a tough guy. Whoa, shocking.

We discover that Hiccup is a blacksmith apprentice who works for Stoick’s BFF, Gobber. As he’s still narrating there is a cool kid shot in which we find out who is most likely to be mean to Hiccup and which girl he has a crush on. Hiccup goes on about wanting to make a mark by killing a dragon, but Gobber is firmly against the idea, along with the entire village. Hiccup is stubborn though, he even builds his own gadgets and the skill comes in handy throughout the movie.

Hiccup goes over the different breeds of dragons. There are seven in this movie: the Deadly Nadder, the Gronckle, the Hideous Zippleback, the Monstrous Nightmare, the Terrible Terror (not introduced in the beginning of the movie but still relevant), and the Night Fury. It’s obvious that the Night Fury will be the main dragon because it’s so mysterious and badass. So in his quest to be a real Viking, Hiccup decides to go for the Night Fury. Reasonable choice, dude. Once Gobber leaves to fight, Hiccup sneaks out with his net throwing wheelbarrow thing hoping to catch a dragon.

By some miracle (i.e. the need to move the plot forward) Hiccup hit the Night Fury. But while he’s celebrating he attracts the attention of a Monstrous Nightmare and a chase ensues.  Stoick rescues him, albeit annoyed by the task. Oh, and we find out that Stoick is Hiccup’s dad; obvious drama device.  Hiccup also accidentally gets stuff destroyed and the captured dragons escape with the livestock. No one is happy with him. He gets sent home despite his insistence that he hit a Night Fury, but he sneaks out anyway because yolo.

There’s a town meeting to discuss going after the dragon nest again, a quest that apparently never goes well. But Stoick, also the village leader, threatens everyone with the responsibility of looking after Hiccup, and that gets everyone raring to go. It’s supposed to be funny but upon further analysis it’s sad. I like him. He’s awkward and smart, what’s not to like?

Anyway, Stoick tells Gobber that he has to stay and train the new recruits, meaning the cool kids. In retaliation, Gobber persuades Stoick to put Hiccup in the train program to prepare him because he will try no matter what. He’s like his dad that way. It’s also nice to see the friendship between Stoick and Gobber. Even the relationship between Hiccup and Gobber is shown, and it’s clear that Gobber is a longtime family friend.

Meanwhile, Hiccup is out in the forest trying to find the Night Fury; but just like with everything else, he’s pretty shit at it. Look at his map, what the hell is that? I can just hear Merida’s voice, and it’s saying: “Aw, wee lamb.” You know Merida, right? The main chick from Brave. But thanks to the fact that the story needs to keep moving, he manages to find it after some self-loathing and getting hit by a tree. He pulls out a tiny knife that looks to be extremely effective, and has a moment of victory until the Night Fury is like: “I’m still alive asshole.”

Then is gets intense and Hiccup tries to kill him but can’t for reasons he doesn’t yet understand so he cuts the Night Fury free. It tackles him and we get a gorgeous eye shot. Seriously, there’s so much detail. I love animation so much. So the Night Fury leaves, but its flying is wonky. What’s wrong with the dragon? Hiccup, you fucked him up.

Hiccup gets home and his dad tells him he is going into training while Hiccup tries to tell him he can’t kill dragons. His dad is not listening. Stoick insists about him wanting to kill dragons, and Hiccup keeps trying to say: “No, dude, I seriously know I can’t.” But Stoick wins and leaves to find the nest. They don’t have the best goodbye ever. Stoick just doesn’t appreciate who his son is; he only focuses on who he wants his son to be. I just get really emotional over father/son relationships.

The next day brings dragon training with the cool kids and Hiccup. The cool kids are: Ruffnut and Tuffnut (twins), Fishlegs (dork), Astrid (love interest), and Snotlout (Jerk). They are not happy with Hiccup being there. Gobber is a great teacher because the first thing they do is fight a Gronckle. They all get blasted with fireballs, and last two are Hiccup and Astrid and we see that she is annoyed by Hiccup’s incompetence. Hiccup almost gets killed but Gobber saves him. Gobber also teaches them about dragons and how they work, but he’s also teaching us at the same time. One thing he said that stick with Hiccup is that: “Dragons always go for the kill.”

But Hiccup is like: “Wait a minute.” He goes back to the forest and once again finds the Night Fury who is trapped a ravine thing. But it’s nice ravine, it has a lake and everything. He just can’t get out because he can’t fly. The first connection they have is the eye contact after Hiccup is loud trying to draw him (hint: with only one tail fin thing). It’s like: “Hey, I remember you.”

By the time he gets back to the village it’s dinner time and Gobber is going over who did what wrong. So of course, the conversation turns mean towards Hiccup who is sitting alone. I think that’s why people love Hiccup so much, they can relate, which makes me sad. Why can’t we all just love each other and hang out or have orgies and shit? I feel like the world would be happier that way. Back to the movie: we are introduced to the Book of Dragons, which goes over more types of dragons and we learn how violent the Vikings think dragons are and how little they know about the Night Fury. It makes you want to meet all of the dragons; some of them are really fucking cool.

There is a short scene of Stoick and company on the ships outside of a fog bank of doom. They go in and there is an intense shot of the fog lighting up with fire, showing the silhouette of a dragon before the scene cuts. Shit is going down.

 It’s training day two: and Hiccup is asking about Night Furies and getting distracted in the Deadly Nader maze. Basically in every training scene, the audience learns more about dragons. Today’s lesson: blind spots. Astrid is on a roll, she’s the best and not interested in Snotlout’s douchey advances. Hiccup once again gets in Astrid’s way but she manages to beat the Nadder, and then proceed to yell at Hiccup.

After training, Hiccup goes back to the ravine thing. He comes bearing fish as a peace offering and the Night Fury sneaks up on him much like a cat. It makes Hiccup get rid of his knife and then it’s like mean dragon is gone and is replaced with an adorable creature with dog and cat behaviors that can retract its teeth so it can be…toothless. It’s the cutest scene ever. Toothless, the now named dragon, throws up the fish body for Hiccup to eat; which he does. It’s nasty. Then he tries to mimic Hiccup’s smile. IT’S SO CUTE!

There is a montage of cute as Hiccup tries to pet Toothless but he won’t let him. Toothless tries to sleep but Hiccup tries to pet again. At one point Hiccup is drawing toothless and so Toothless tries to draw him. It looks big and elaborate but it’s just squiggles. More cuteness. But Toothless is proud and won’t let Hiccup step on it. At the end of the day Toothless lets Hiccup touch his snout before he runs off. They’re bonding! I mean the music was kind of cheesy but it worked.

Hiccup goes to dinner and Gobber telling the story of how he lost his hand and foot. Snotlout gets passionate about it. His line made me laugh for five days. We also learn that a downed dragon is a dead dragon and Hiccup has a light bulb moment. Also, the winner of the training program gets to face off against a Monstrous Nightmare in front of village. This is important.

Next is a montage of Hiccup working and building stuff. Whoa, it’s a tail for Toothless. Toothless’ face is priceless when Hiccup puts it on him. He distracted him with fish and Hiccup learned that dragons don’t like eels. Toothless tries to fly with Hiccup still sat on his tail and when the tail isn’t stretched taut, Toothless falls.

           

            The next training session is against a Zippleback. It isn’t going well until Hiccup wins by scaring the dragon back into its cage with a concealed eel. No one knows that though and their faces are amazing. Reaction shots are the best. Hiccup is still terrible with physical and fighting stuff, but he’s using his smarts and inside knowledge. Four for you, Hiccup.

Back in the shop, Hiccup makes a saddle and pulley system for the fake tail. Cue montage. This one is a series of intermixed scenes of Hiccup winning at training with his secret knowledge and how he and Toothless are improving their flying system. It’s back and forth with improvement on both fronts. People actually like Hiccup now, except Astrid. She wants to win the chance to fight the dragon but Hiccup is stealing her thunder. She almost catches him sneaking off to see Toothless, but he’s stealthier than we give him credit for. At another point, the latch that holds Hiccup to Toothless breaks so he has to sneak Toothless into the village to fix it. Astrid almost catches them again, but Toothless is fast. The point is that she knows something is up.

I’m ending this one here. It’s a weird place to stop but I don’t care. See you next week. Don’t forget to yolo.

Movie Review: Jurassic Park (1993) Part 2:

Warning: Naughty language, kids.

Previously: /Boom/. Water ripple. /Boom/. Water ripple. /Boom/. Water ripple.

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Rex is here to fuck shit up (he’s called Rex because T-Dog is a character from the Walking Dead and I don’t want to be sued). It horror begins with the goat being eaten, easily the saddest loss of the movie. Next, he makes like Ludacris and gets that fence out the way…bitch. Rex has his freedom at last.

Now, I wasn’t alive to see this movie in theaters, but I imagine seeing Rex roaring on the big screen was fucking awesome. I still get goose bumps from the growl. Lawyer must get them too because he wimps out and abandons the kids, but he gets eaten for being an asshole, so it’s fine. Then Lex decides it would be a good idea to shine a light in the damn thing’s face. So of course, Rex attacks their jeep. But have no fear, Grant and Malcolm to the rescue. Well, unless you’re Malcolm because Malcolm gets injured distracting Rex while Grant helps the kids out of the ruined jeep. Grant almost does it, but while he gets Lex out of the jeep, Tim get pushed over a cliff before he can escape. Grant and Lex climb down over the enclosure to get away from Rex and to get Tim out of the tree and now the three of them are lost in the park. Fucking great. Thus ends this classic scene.

Everyone who didn’t go on the tour get worried that the J-crew isn’t back so Dick Muld and Sattler go out to get find them. When Sattler and Dick Muld get to the site of the attack, it’s a bit shocking to say the least. There might be some freaking out but on the upside they find Malcolm alive. They stash Malcolm in the car and look for the others. Then comes the /Boom/. Water ripple. Guess who’s back? Sattler and Dick Muld get back just in time to drive away, but not without giving the world the iconic side view mirror shot. Back with Grant and kids, they find nice tree to sleep in. While in the tree, we see some development from Grant as his feelings towards kids change.

Back at the base of operations, John is eating his feelings with ice cream when Sattler joins him. John talks about his rationale for creating the park. He had a flea circus that was all tricks but when he could he wanted to make something real, no tricks. Then he ruins the moment by saying he wants to try again. But Sattler talks about how the park is an illusion of control and now they’re fucked over because people they care about are lost.

The next morning, Grant and kids wake up to a brachiosaurus eating off their tree. Grant feeds it, Tim pets it, and Lex gets sneezed on. It probably didn’t like her initial reaction of screaming. It’s like: “Girl please, it’s too early for this shit.”  As they continue on their trek through the forest, Grant finds dinosaur eggs proving that Malcolm was right, life found a way. They also briefly mention in the background that Lex is a hacker, which seems random, but trust me, it’s important  

Once again people are arguing because John wants to shut down the system to get rid of the virus fat man placed but Not- Nick doesn’t want to because the rest of the security, including the raptor pen fences, would go down. Even Dennis the asshole was smart enough to keep them on. But John wins and Not-Nick ends up doing it. Luckily it work, unfortunately, Not-Nick has to go across the main part of the park to turn the breakers back on.

You know how some movie have some gratuitous nudity and sex? Well, this movie is a little different, we get gratuitous dinosaurs. Grants and kids are marching along when they stumble across a see a herd of galaminus running around a field, looking dumb. But I they’re running away from Rex, so looking cool isn’t a priority. Grant and kids hide and watch as Rex catches and eats a galaminus. Then they leave. Gratuitous.

Sattler gets worried because Not-Nick is taking forever to turn on the breakers (due to circumstances previously discussed) so she and Dick Muld go to investigate. But it’s never that easy, the two of them have to evade the raptors that escaped. Sadly, this is where Dick Muld’s story ends, he gets eaten but Sattler makes it. This scene is good though because before Dick and Sattler leave, John is like: “Maybe I should go because you’re a woman.” But Sattler is like: “I’ll kick your sexist ass when I get back.” Those weren’t the exact words, but that’s what I heard.

On the last leg of their journey, Grant and kids have to climb a deactivated electric fence, and once again, it’s never easy. Of course they reach the fence right as Sattler is busy trying to turn the power back on. Grant and Lex get over the fence but Tim wimps out and just chills on the fence even when the alarm starts going off. Don’t be a little bitch Tim. Sattler turns the fences on and Tim gets shocked. While that’s happening, Sattler has to run away from raptors and in the process she finds the decoy arm Not-Nick left. Tim almost dies, but Grant saves him with CPR. I hope you learned your lesson, kid.

The J-crew makes it back to the visitors’ center and Grant leaves the kids to get help. But it’s okay because he left them in the dining room with a buffet. I’m always jealous of that. Grant finds Sattler right away and they hug; it’s a very nice reunion. Back with the kids, they are eating and having a good time but raptors show up and mood is ruined. They hide in the kitchen in a very intense scene, one of my favorite scenes in fact.  

Tim and Lex make it out of the kitchen and find Sattler and Grant. They reunited J-crew runs to the control room but they can’t lock the door because the system needs to be reset. Remember that thing I said seemed unimportant but it was actually important? This is it. Lex has her moment and reboots everything with her hacker skills, locking the door and turning the phones on. But the raptors say: “Fuck your doors,” and break through the glass. They escape through the ceiling and end up coming out of a vent next to the fossil display in the lobby. After jumping onto the fossils, they end up falling and are about to get eaten but suddenly REX. He shows up and saves the day, and by day I mean meal. Rex fucks up the raptors’ shit completely. The roar at the end with the banner flying down is amazing. Slow clap for Rex.  

Hammond and Malcolm pick them up in a jeep and everyone agrees to that the park is a death trap, even Hammond. They leave the island in a helicopter and the kids and Grant fall asleep next to each other and Sattler is like: “Awwww.”  It’s strangely calm after all that’s happened. Like they almost got eaten and now they are in a helicopter, silent as they leave. I think they all might be revaluating their lives after the near death experiences. But still…motherfucking dinosaurs, man.

The End.

Movie Review: Jurassic Park (1993) Part 1:

Warning: Naughty language, kids.

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Mother. Fucking. Dinosaurs.

Okay, first of all, let me just say that the music is fucking fantastic in this movie. It sets the mood immediately and you know something ominous is going down. And it’s true, all sorts of ominous shit is happening. It’s nighttime, the bushes are swaying while people in hardhats watch with apprehension. At least I think it’s apprehension, it could be boredom, or arousal. I don’t empathize well with strangers. Guys with guns are watching a forklift with a huge cage going towards a bigger cage. Isla Nublar appears on the bottom of the screen. Now we have a setting. In the crate something is watching them. I wonder what it is. Big surprise, as they are transferring the mysterious creature a dude gets eaten. What could have done this?

Next we see some dude in the jungle, on a raft, dressed in a suit like an asshole. Big surprise, he’s a lawyer. He shall be called Lawyer from here on out. Lawyer is visiting a mine of some sort.  He’s talking about the incident that happened and insurance and other words I tuned out because Lawyer is very annoying and dull. They end the scene with a shot of a mosquito encased in amber; which I took sick pleasure from. That’s what you deserve you mosquito fuck head.

Now we find ourselves in the middle of an excavation. People are unearthing a velociraptor fossil. What I liked about this scene was the constant sound of brushing, it was oddly relaxing. It was like listening to ocean waves rush up onto the sand. Swish, swish. Here is where we meet Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler. They’re an item, but they are very low key about it. But they aren’t together in Jurassic Park 3. I’m still bitter about it.

The archaeologists are using radar to see the fossil underground and when Dr. Grant compares raptors to birds a little asshole child is like: “It doesn’t look like a bird, more like an overgrown turkey, I’m a kid an I know everything, I’m unsupervised, my shirt is stupid.” There may or may not have been some slight exaggeration. But Dr. Grant is having none of his bullshit, so he tells the kid in great detail on how velociraptors would eat him alive. Dr. Grant doesn’t like kids. I feel you, man.

Then a fucking Helicopter comes and almost ruins their dig site. Fucking CEOs think they can do whatever. We then meet John Hammond, owner of the park. He needs a second opinion about his park to make the lawyers happy so he bribes Grant and Sattler into agree to visit the park as consultants. But he is vague about what kind of park it is. I would be like: “Dude, tell me where I’m going or you can just leave now.” But money, but sketchy. Ahh, confliction.

In the next little scene is set in Costa Rica. A man in a hat, who is bad at being discreet, talks to fat man named Dennis about stealing embryos from the park; for money of course. Dennis is bad. In fact he’s the worst character in the movie.

More helicopter. Hammond, Grant, Sattler, and Lawyer are the passengers. Along with new character, Dr. Ian Malcolm; the weird guy from the sequel. They land on Isla Nublar and get to ride in the cool jeeps with the logo. I noticed that Lawyer was wearing a short suit. As in, a suit with shorts, what a tool; maybe Lawyer is the worst character. I just really didn’t like the character. He annoyed me so much; I tuned him out a lot. What happened next? Oh yeah…DINOSAURS. The first one they see is a brontosaurus, or is it a brachiosaurus. Don’t blame me for not knowing. Dammit readers, I’m a blogger, not an archaeologist. Anyway, Dr. Grant is freaking out a little, he almost fainted but I would feel faint too, maybe cry. So yeah, they have a little freak out and ask questions and when Hammond said T-Rex, I remember being like…oh shit.

One question is: how? Solid question, it’d be nice to know how the hell you made dinosaurs. The answer lies within the walls of the visitors’ center. The J-crew arrives and they get on a ride to find out about how they did it. It was all very scientific, I felt smarter after watching the educational video. The little DNA guy was my favorite dude when I was a kid. The answer to how is cloning and it turns out that mosquitoes are only good in movies; which is still shitty because they’re only fake good. The J-crew sees the lab of wonder and leaves the ride to learn more. It’s not allowed but you know, yolo right? They get there just in time to see a velociraptor hatch, it was an ugly motherfucker.

This is great and all, but what the hell. Wouldn’t the dinosaurs just breed and take over the island? The movie has an answer for that; a scientist person says they control the population by making all of the dinosaurs female but Malcolm was like: “life finds a way.” Spoiler: he’s right.

On the way to lunch, the J-crew walks past a velociraptor enclosure in time to see a cow being fed to the raptors. Poor cow, it was pretty brutal.  It was funny because John was like: “we have lunch waiting.” But everyone else was like: “bitch I want to see this.” Here we officially meet the game warden, Robert Muldoon. I shall call him Dick Muld. He talks about how smart the raptors are and about how one of them is really big and smart. /whispers/ foreshadowing.

At lunch, they are served some weird looking crap that is even less appetizing after the cow evisceration. I don’t really care for this scene because it’s legal and financial talk with a heaping serving of arguing about ethics and respecting life. I’m not saying respecting nature is bad, do that. Water a plant, pet a panda, we just won’t be in a position to argue about the cloning of dinosaurs. That’s why this scene lost my attention. I went onto Tumblr. Malcolm, Lawyer and Hammond were the biggest culprits in the debate. I don’t want to spend too much time on this scene but basically, /gasp/ Malcolm is right again.

After lunch, it’s tour time. This is where we meet John’s grandkids. The boy, Tim, has an obsession with dinosaurs, and Dr. Grant. The girl, Lex, ends up liking him too; much to his displeasure and Sattler’s amusement. For the tour, they get even cooler jeeps. John is in the control room and he says to start the tour and whoa, Nick Fury what are doing here? Except he’s not Nick Fury here, he’s Ray Arnold, but here he’s Not-Nick. He’s a computer guy, who smokes, bad Not-Nick.

I bet that’s how he lost his eye. When he goes to turn on the generators later in the movie, he realized he was out of cigarettes. This was bad because everyone knows that velociraptors are health conscious and don’t eat prey that smells like cancer smoke. But since Not-Nick was out of cigarettes, the protective aroma wore off. So he had to run to his locker, which was stuffed with body part props that he acquired from his days of moonlighting as a Scare Tactics set decorator. He found a fake arm, similar to his real arm and threw it to the raptors as a diversion. With the raptors distracted, he got to a helicopter and flew off the island to go to the nearest convenience store. When he landed, he caused quite a ruckus, and in the commotion of the landing he tripped and fell onto a cat that was having a bad day. The cat then proceeded to claw the shit out of his eye. Hurt, cigarette-less, and embarrassed, he went to the hospital and when they patched up his eye, he vowed to never go back and face his shame. Thus, Nick Fury was born.

What?

Back to the tour, the J-crew passes through the gates of doom. But just like any other fucking animal attraction, they have no luck seeing the dinosaurs. A goat is used to try and lure the T-rex out but Rex was like: “Fuck your goat.” As they continue through the tour Grant just gets out of the moving jeep. Everyone else follows and Dick Muld was like: “I told you we should lock the doors, idiots.” The J-crew sees their first dinosaurs of the tour, a sick triceratops. After some debate and shitting around, everyone has to go because of a storm that’s approaching the island, but Sattler stays behind to help the triceratops more. Bitch, doesn’t realize how lucky her decision is.

It’s storming now and John is sad that the tour went badly. But Not-Nick was like: “At least they didn’t get eaten.” Fair point. But things only get worse when Dennis the asshole strikes. He’s been dicking around throughout the movie, but he is too annoying and not worth mentioning much. He shuts down the security systems and steals some dinosaur embryos. This causes the electric fences, ones that are keeping deadly animals away from the squishy humans, to fail all over the park; the jeeps even shut down.

 But good news, while Dennis the asshole is trying to drive to the docks he fucks up and gets eaten by an escaped dinosaur. Meanwhile, Not-Nick has to try a fix the system. Everything is fucked up: the phones are broken, people are stranded, dinosaurs are escaping, and the goat is stuck out in the storm. And of course the jeeps break down in front of the T-rex enclosure; very important to mention that.

/Boom/. Water ripple. /Boom/. Water ripple. /Boom/. Water ripple.

Movie Review: The Avengers (2012) Part 2:

Warning: Naughty language, kids. Also, sorry about the length, it's kind of long, but there wasn't a really good place to split it up without a part being too short.

 Last time we left off with Tony getting in on the action; we pick up with Steve flying to the Hellicarrier. As in, he’s on a jet; he’s not flying by himself. In this scene we get a lethal dose of fanboy Coulson . “I watched you while you were sleeping.” Coulson no. We also get more reminders that Steve…isn’t from around here. Poor Steve.

Whoa! We find Loki’s evil lair next. Loki and his larger-than-we-saw-last-time crew are holed up underground somewhere, there’s tunnels and shit; very villainy. The god is meditating or something, talking to the Other. He’s also aligning his chakras and reducing stress to prevent wrinkles. We see more of the potentially mind-controlled Loki because the Other threatens him with pain and not being able to win hide and seek ever again. The Other also mentions that: “He will *yadda yadda words I can’t recall*.” Who is he? Still not telling us anything. Also, there’s like a giant snake slithering in the background?! It was very threating. I felt threatened.

Back on the good guy front, Steve arrives at the Hellicarrier and meets Natasha and Bruce.  The big moment in this scene is the revealing of the Hellicarrier. Yeah, biggest event, not much else to say. Bruce makes some jokes, Steve is a nice guy, and Natasha is sexy.

Moving on.

We find ourselves back with Loki who is plotting evil plans with zombie!Hawkeye. They need an eyeball. Meanwhile, on the Hellicarrier, minions are scanning the world for Loki and Coulson is fanboying. Big surprise, they find Loki, who isn’t even trying to be discreet. That should set bells off immediately. How are they not suspicious? Aside from the terrible intuitions of the good guy crew, this scene is amazing, especially when we see Loki in a suit, being evil, and drilling out eyeballs. He’s so evil here, it’s beautiful. Error time, he’s in Germany right? But he’s speaking English and the German people understood said English. Another point, Loki sounds really preachy, not like the sassy and insane little shit we know from Thor. Mind control I tell you. But then Captain America drops from the top of the frame and then it’s time to FIGHT. Ironman crashes the fight and Loki gives up. For what reason???  Come on, people. Alarm bells should be ringing away.

Apparently the bells are ringing when Cap and Tony talk about their suspicions but they still want to take him to the fucking Hellicarrier. Guys, please.  But suddenly thunder. Oh hey Thor, nice of you to show up. I can’t get over how Thor just fucking walked into the jet and took Loki. He just fucking took him. They have a little family reunion and Thor alludes to the mysterious person who controls the “would-be king.”  Then Tony interrupts because when Tony is around, he can only go so long without being the center of attention.  Cap tried to stop them, but instead a forest got decimated. They worked it out though. Loki hung around to watch the fight instead of escaping.…WHY ARE YOU IDIOTS STILL TAKING HIM TO THE HELICARRIER? Thor, I understand why you are, you just got there. Everyone else, punch yourselves in the face.

So, Loki arrives at the Hellicarrier and everyone is edgy. He gets put into a prison, and he just rolls his eyes. Little asshole. In the meantime, Thor is giving the 411 to the rest of the team. He tells them about Loki’s evil plot plan and how he has an army to enslave everyone, and the Avengers are so done. An army from outer space. Really? Something beautiful happens though, the beginning of the science bros. Tony and Bruce=BFFs forever.

With this new found broship, Tony and Bruce get to work on locating the Tesseract. And what broship is complete without conspiracy talk with Captain America. Tony is like: “Shit is weird, man.” Bruce is like: “He has a point.” And Steve is like: “No, get to work.” But then he walks out of the room and investigates anyway. The whole sequence on the Hellicarrier gets a little slow, they are setting up for the final battle.

We also, see a darker side of Nick Fury when he brings up the idea of torturing Loki to Thor. It was pretty heavy. But then the scene with Widow and Loki made everything okay. She was manipulative and Loki got tricked. You got tricked, son. But, as the evil villain he is, he still manages to get to her head with the sexiest speech in the Marvel universe. We also got a little Hawkeye and Widow back story. This is also the part where Steve, Tony, and Bruce find out S.H.I.E.L.D.s dirty little secret.

Cue the inevitable scene of tension and fighting that happens when a bunch of superheroes get together. Basically, everyone is bitching at one another. Nick said they made weapons with the Tesseract because Thor’s appearance on Earth showed that Earth was wimpy. But Thor is like: “No, stupid head, wrong.” He said that they had shown that Earth is ready for a “higher form of war.” I guess it’s nice that space decided to wait until we were ready to attack us. Suddenly, Hawkeye trick shot.  What are you up to? This scene also has the heartbreaking moment of Bruce saying he tried to kill himself. Bruce baby, we just want you to be happy.  So then Hawkeye conveniently blows shit up right as Bruce finds out where the Tesseract is. And he Hulks out. Almost killing Widow before Thor tackles Hulk. By the way, Hulk is “mean” in this scene because the explosion was unexpected and the Hulk transformation was sudden, not by choice, and traumatizing. So stop saying that it doesn’t make sense that Hulk helped them later. Jesus, just think.

Anyway, Hulk ends up diving off the carrier and onto a jet that was shooting at him. Steve and Tony are repairing the ship and Natasha goes after Hawkeye to knock some sense into him. Thor checks on Loki and ends up locked in the cage because Thor has a problem for falling for the same trick. Then comes the unspeakable act…Loki killing Coulson. But I blame Joss Whedon because that’s the type of person he is. But at least Coulson got his shot at Loki, while Thor gets ejected from the Hellicarrier. 

In the aftermath of Loki’s escape, they call it. Coulson is dead. Nick Fury is talking to Tony and Steve, to whom he presents Coulson’s blood-stained Captain America cards, unsigned. A part of me died at that moment.  Thor ended up in a field somewhere and Bruce wakes up in a newly smashed factory, where he meets the best security guard ever. The security guard was another gem in the movie. Hawkeye comes to on the Hellicarrier and we finally get the Hawkeye we wanted. Well, at least for the remaining nine minutes of screen time he has.

Tony and Steve finally figure out where Loki is and the Avengers, who now get along and work as a team perfectly, head out. Nick sees them leaving and tracks them, and we find out that he ruined Coulson’s card with his blood because “they needed the push.” Fuck you, Nick. This isn’t even about the Avengers right now okay? Coulson worked hard to get those cards and you ruined them. Coulson’s going to be pissed.

Back in the action, we find Loki and crew at Stark Tower where Dr.  Selvig is on the roof doing his Tesseract thing, but he gets knocked out when Tony tries to blow it up. Which doesn’t even work. The portal is open. So then Tony decides to threaten Loki and he gets tossed out of a window when Tony’s arc reactor prevents Loki from mind controlling him. But on the upside, we get to see the new Ironman suit.

Here it is, the final battle. The Chitauri, Loki’s space army, starts swarming through the portal. There is a lot of explosions and screaming. It’s utter chaos. Loki must be jizzing all over himself.  But the mood is ruined when Thor finally shows up again and he goes for Loki, who ends up stabbing him. But for a second, it seemed like there was a possibly moment of clarity for Loki after Thor smashed him into the floor. Then he turned back into ultra-dick.  Steve, Clint, and Natasha arrive in the Quinjet, which gets shot down almost immediately.  There are also space whales that show up at one point, they’re pretty cool.

Thor ends up beating the shit out of Loki, and so Loki gets out of there but he leaves scepter on the balcony below. There is just so much action and badassery everywhere: Steve parkours, Tasha and Clint reminisce about Budapest while kicking ass and Bruce shows up on moped. Then we get awesome Hulk and the first thing he does is punch a space whale in the face. I have to mention the epic circle shot of all them fighting as a team. Pure ecstasy.  More stuff happens: Hulk punches Thor, Cap saves some people, Natasha and Selvig figure out how to shut off the portal, Hawkeye blows Loki up, and Hulk smashes Loki. That’s the end of Loki fighting in this battle. I’ve heard people say there was too much action, but it’s all awesome action. Tony flies into a space whale and blows it up, so cool. But then the fucking council decides to nuke the city. But then good guy Tony redirects the nuke into the portal and Tasha closes the damn thing. Tony almost died, but he’s fine now, he ate some Shawarma.  But yeah, the nuke destroys the mother ship and all of the aliens die. Also, they capture Loki.

Then it’s just the ending to wrap shit up.  The world is thankful, except for some political bastards, and Stan Lee. I was scared for a while that he wasn’t going to have a cameo since it was so close to the end when it happened. But come on, past me, this is Joss we are talking about, everything was fine. More wrap up: Loki and Thor leave for Asgard, the council and nick have a chat about how Nick was right and the council was wrong, and the science bros drive off together. Everyone goes their separate ways, but they’ll come back because of the sequel. The last shot is of Tony and Pepper Stark Tower, rebuilding and planning out towers for the rest of the Avengers. As the shot pans out of the building we see that only the “A” of Stark Tower survived the battle on stark tower. Get it? Avengers.  

The End.

Cut scene 1: We find out that the “he” we heard so much about during the movie is Thanos. Now, this is just a guess, but I think he’s going to be the villain in Avengers 2.

Cut scene 2: Shawarma. Just Shawarma.

New reviews

I forgot to say that I will be posting new reviews every Monday. I need a week because I'm lazy and I need that long to watch a movie and then write and edit a review.

Also, feel free to give me suggestions for reviews. I'm terrible at making decisions and input would be appreciated.

Movie Review: The Avengers (2012)

Okay, friends, so the movie opens up with this creepy character called, the Other, talking to an unknown being about how the Tesseract (the blue cube of magic from Captain America) has awoken and is on Earth and that their ally, Loki, can work that shit and lead the army to victory. He makes a point of calling the human race weak. He also states that the human race will burn. Swell guy, right? But guess what; humans don’t burn, we shine bright…like diamonds.  The opening narration basically lets you know that there’s a shit storm heading Earth’s way.

The next scene is located at a S.H.I.E.L.D. base; everyone is scrambling to evacuate because the Tesseract is acting up. Rude. We see Nick Fury for the first time talking to Maria Hill about some stuff and she’s like, “Nick please.” That’s basically their entire relationship. But I feel like they could have played up the tension between Nick and Maria better. An average movie goer wouldn’t really gather they butt heads a lot. Nick goes to see what’s happening with the Tesseract and we are reintroduced Dr. Erik Selvig, who we first saw in Thor.  They have a chat about the Tesseract and Selvig has a line about small levels of gamma radiation not being harmful, and then Nick has a great reaction face and replies with, “that can be harmful.”  Pure gold. We also get introduced to Clint Barton, A.K.A Hawkeye, in this scene (I don’t say reintroduced because his nineteen seconds in Thor don’t count).

This next bit is so important that it gets its own section. Are you ready? My thought process when I first saw this character’s introduction in this movie goes as follows, “Oh God is that him? It has to be him. It is. It is him. Here he comes, jesus he is so hot, he is literally simmering. Oh, there go my ovaries.”

Loki.

Yes, folks, we get the villain fairly early in the movie and what does he do immediately? He fucks shit up with his scepter of glowing badassery. It was a great introduction for a great villain. But while this scene was smoking hot, it leads to my first criticism; Hawkeye becoming a mind slave. This just seems like a cheap escape from having to come up with enough storyline for the character. Joss, the people want Hawkeye, not a fucking puppet. There better be a smorgasbord of sass and action from Hawkeye in Avengers 2. Or there will be blood. Dr. Selvig and some randoms also gets brainwashed by Loki’s scepter because every villain needs a posse. Then Loki and his crew take the Tesseract and leave, taking the party with them. But not so fast, Maria Hill is on the case, and by that I mean there is a tunnel chase.

Now, before we move on, it’s theory time. When Loki first comes through the portal made by the Tesseract, he’s all sweaty and sick, just like Hawkeye is after he was mind-slaved. There has to be a reason for this. Tom Hiddleston does not simply look all sweaty and sick for no reason in a film. Not to say Loki isn’t an asshole, because he totally is, but is there some mind control happening to Loki? Who knows? I mean it. No one tells us anything. We are stuck posting theories on Tumblr.

So then, the S.H.I.E.L.D base is destroyed by the radiation of Loki’s grand entrance. But it’s fine because it’s not the Hellicarrier. Unless you’re Agent Coulson, he looked sad, but that might be because left some Captain America merchandise in his office. Agent Hill gets trapped in tunnel and can’t chase the bad news gang anymore, but have no fear, Nick Fury and his helicopter are here to-oh never mind, Loki just shot it out of the sky. Nick gets totally mad at Loki and declares a level seven, which is apparently a big deal. Also, this is all before the main title screen. The first few scenes were setup and action before the slightly tedious gathering of the heroes.

Enter: Natasha Romanoff, A.K.A Black Widow, who we first saw in Ironman 2. All I can really say is that she is introduced wonderfully. She uses her feminine and super spy ways to interrogate some criminals, while being tied up, to a chair. But the best part is the phone call, which gives Agent Coulson a witty line and establishes how badass he is. Natasha was like, “I’m working, not now.” Then Coulson was all, “Hawkeye has gone cray.” Well then. She proceeds to beat the shit out of the dumb criminals. It was awesome. Black Widow is just an amazing female character who kicks ass and takes names while looking fabulous. Praise Joss Whedon for writing awesome female characters. Four for you, Joss Whedon; you go, Joss Whedon.

Next on Nick Fury’s party list is Bruce Banner, A.K.A the Hulk. He’s in Calcutta, which is obscure and big enough for him to blend in. I have to say, I had my doubts when I heard Mark Ruffalo was cast as Bruce Banner. All I could think about was Matty from 13 Going On 30. But I was quick to worry because Mark nailed it. His, “Sorry, that was mean,” line was when I stood up and shouted my love for him to the heavens. The heavens told me to shut up because they were trying to watch the movie. Anyway, Bruce is working as a doctor and gets conned into going to an empty house, but it’s not empty. Look, it’s Natasha. We find out that S.H.I.E.L.D has been helping him hide from shady people.  This scene was exciting because it’s the first scene where the audience really gets to see interaction from characters who haven’t met. There was sass, persuasion, and sass. Did I forget to say that this movie is riddled with sass? Because it is. Bruce ends up going with Natasha, of course. But imagine if he didn’t, that would be really awkward.

After a very nice transition, courtesy of Nick Fury. We get the most epic butt shot in the history of butt shots. Hello Steve Rogers, A.K.A Captain America. I’m still not over that shot of his perfect, Grecian ass. Steve definitely has some pent up issues from the way he was fucking up that punching bag. Poor, Steve. Nick has the honor of talking to Steve (I’m sure Coulson was pouting somewhere) and they chatted about the Tesseract and Steve is so done with the stupid cube. And he should be, he ended up frozen in ice for like 70 years because of the damn thing. 

 After another transition, this time brought to us by Steve, we get to see Tony Stark, A.K.A. you know who the hell he his. I’m going to be straight up and tell you, the sass he brings to the table is staggering, but that’s what we love about Robert Downey JR. or Tony Stark, those names are interchangeable.  So Tony is now green and used arc reactor tech to make a self-sustaining tower. But a real gem in this scene is Pepper Potts. Their dynamic is amazing. It was good to see their relationship for a little while in Avengers instead of having to wait until Ironman 3.  Sassy sass, sass. Sass. Coulson end up being the bearer of Loki news in this scene, and surprise, Tony joins the party.

So while Thor appears later, the introductions of the characters were funny moved along at a descent pace but at the same time I wanted them to just get together and kick some ass. I know that wouldn’t be good storytelling, so I shouldn’t complain. So I won’t anymore.

Now all of the characters will be joining forces soon. Or will they? Will things go over smoothly between the heroes? Where is Loki now? Why did Hawkeye get the short stick? Why am I asking? Everyone has seen this movie. Just, come back here next week and read the rest of the review.